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A lot of people have Facebook accounts for at least one year. They keep logging into their own account everyday and the number of registered users is still increasing. At the same time, many netusers may also have the same experience that registering an beautiful attractive site, but with only a few later visiting. For the users, what they did are just the same Trial and Repeating using. However we can see that only a few sites could got the Reputation and the customer Loyalty. From the design perspective, this issue can might be explain as there were two kinds of feelings that the web designs would give to the users. The feelings of ‘fall in love at first sight’ and ‘feel like old friends’.

Fall in love at first sight

Every web designer and manager knows that beautiful graphic design is very useful for attracting people to have a look at their websites. Also, users may have good impression so that to visit the sites again because of some unique designs or functions. But does a beautiful design means everything of a good design? In the real world’s love stories, falling in love at first sight may not means forever.

Donald Norman once mentioned his three teapots with aesthetic design in his kitchen. All those three teapots that had aesthetic design always made him pleasant when brewing tea. Starting with the teapot using experience, Norman discussed much about the superiority of the thing that had attractive industrial design. But he also indicated that focusing only on good appearance is ‘the wrong lesson to learn from this essay.’[1] He thought usability is also importan. ‘There are many designers, many design schools, who cannot distinguish prettiness from usefulness… Good design means that beauty and usability are in balance.’[1]

Yes, just like the users, we designers always ignore the usability at the beginning since we thought too much about how to attract people. ‘Color’, a web-based photo sharing app on iOS, might be a negative example. It got good promotion, cool features and beautiful design that better than Instagram. But it finally failed and had to re-designed to be a small video sharing app for Facebook. One of the reason is that, comparing to Instagram, some of Color’s sharing functions are quite complicated and some are just unnecessary, even they are cooler.

Feel like old friends

I have a friend who studied psychology. Every time when people ask him if he can ‘read’ their mind, he will play a classic trick that asking them to quickly thinking of a kind of carbonated drink, or sometimes a kind of fruit. After that he will say the thing is cola, or apple, that in the person’s mind. Of course his answer is always right. He said this phenomenon was caused by the things called archetypes that in human’s mind. In brief, our brain is keep classifying all the information that came into our memory. Then each classified category will be marked with an marker, that is, the archetype, which should be the most familiar or the most representative one in the category.

There are many kinds of user requirements when teams do analysis work. We sort requirements as different priority levels, since some of them are pointless or some of them cannot be done in planned schedule and man power. I think ‘making the product close to, or better than the archetype’ is one of the most core and essential user requirement, because meeting this requirement can give users a familiar feeling that like old friends of them. However this requirement is kind of a subconscious one in user’s mind, so that some designers and managements may miss it.

For some successful social network sites like Facebook, the way they implement social circle is making the site full fill with many kinds of convenient information interaction to satisfy users’ simple communication, sharing and gossip desire. Isn’t that the way we mostly familiar with?

For the site of our DMSP work, the archetype is just the reading experience. If we only focus on creating attractive things, like sounds and graphics, users may close the page since we provide a complicated text environment. So except integrating creative functions, our work should ensure that the text environment is convenient and secure as it on the paper. After all, to make users feel like the website is just a familiar book that belongs to them, not to make the site looks like a fashion magazine’s cover.

Many company promotes their beautiful website by advertising the highlight new features. But after you visiting those sites several times, the one that is easiest to understand will be your favorite.

In the process of doing this project, many approaches have been suggested by members of group. By examining the function and intention of our website, 360° panoramic photograph is adopted to show the literary high street. This type photograph provides a wild range of angles to view buildings or sceneries. By removing mouse, users can spin the picture easily. They can look any details as they want, then click any place, the related literal narration will turn up. It is convenient to read for visitors, also could provoke their interest. Additionally, we also set up a Mobile App to suit mobile suit mobile visitors. It is easier to use flash to make 360° panoramic photograph. However, it is known that flash language cannot be supported by mobile app through discussing with Jone Lee director in a meeting, panoramic photograph therefore we must adopt other editing language instead of flash such as JavaScript. Nevertheless, JavaScript is difficult for us to use, therefore we do many researches on Internet and books to get helps.

We browsed many tourist website and many industries or companies official website, it can be seen that 360° panoramic photograph is used wildly to show the places of historic interest, scenic spots and famous structures such as old church, the tower, popular tourist cities, towns and streets. For example, BBC news reports that panoramic photographs, or 360 virtual tours, have been around for many years. According to Phil Coomes (2011) ，”Take a look, move left, right and up and down. Great, but then zoom, and zoom and zoom. The detail is just phenomenal.” In his article ‘how to take a 15.5 gigapixel panoramic photo ’, he has described the advantage and disadvantage of 360° panoramic photograph, how to make it and the adopted technologies. He also has suggested the problem is face to editors in the process. This article enlightened me on making the photograph. It not only helps us to resolve the present technology problem also brings us new creative idea on design. In this article, he also suggested that “Virtual Tours are interactive spherical panoramas that are made up of a number of individual images stitched together and then projected in such a way as to make the viewer feel like they are actually there – it is sometimes known as Virtual Reality photography”, this suggestion make us think to combine Google mapping and 360° panoramic photograph. Via this combination, it could provide more conveniences to visitors, and improve the accuracy of location information.

With the development of the information technology and the app technology, 360° panoramic photograph has become ‘’an excellent journalistic tool for showing the picture and telling the story of its full context” (Spherical Images Ltd). It provide a wild angle to visitors to see the place or structures, also it bring visitors to transport in a scene. By removing the mouse or touch the smart phone screen, visitors can look anywhere they want as they are in.

Our project is to show the literary history of Edinburgh’s high street. It is intended to provide a convenient way to tourists to get literary and historic information about this street. According to examining the characteristic and function of our website, and In order to attract more visitors and help them to identify the location and rote, 360°panoramic photograph was adopted to display the scenic spots of this street. Actually, we used new photo technology which is GPS photo in the website. The GPS photo technology combined with multimedia applications and multipoint videoconferencing. It is possible to display ancestral roots locations over thousands of miles by photo imaging with GPS tracking via Google maps and 360 degree virtual panorama tours. It is an amazing new way to organize our photographs with digital mapping.

Finally, all items of this project were worked out, because of the limitation of our technology, the present photography can only spin 180 degree. But compared with the normal photo, it is also with more advantages to provide wilder angle and create a feel ‘you are here’for visitors. We hope our website can provide visitor a comment and comfortable way to know about literary high street. Certainly, the further improving will be continued. In addition, all feedback and suggest could help us to perfect our design to enhance visitors experience.

This report will be introduction to my work with understanding of Electronic literature of photography. The inspiration I got from the project impacted my photo works a lot. I also got idea from my last essay Cyborg and found many interesting points from this project.

While our team members got the project, we decided to create a website for introducing the literary high street. The questions follow with our ideas. How could we bring a virtual tour for people who are sitting at home? After a short discussion, the panorama photo is a basic idea to present the scenes of high street. It can clearly introduce the real environment of high street and the sites.

When I found the electronic literature on the brief, I was very interested in the concept which is discussed by N. Katherine Hayles in her online article “Electronic Literature: What Is It.” I notice that the concept is similar with the Cyborg in some degree.

By the definition:

“work with an important literary aspect that takes advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer.”(Hayles.N.K: 2008)

Our web site also should be a kind of electronic literature. Moreover, The website can introduce the historic sites and relevant articles which based on the print by contrast” digital born”. The description of electronic literature makes me remember the definition of Cyborg that is the essay I wrote at last semester. The Cyborg and the Electronic literature are quite similar situation. Both of them are emerged by following the digital technology and tested the boundaries of traditional definition. The different is Cyborg challenged the definition of human being. Electronic literature “challenges us to re-think our assumptions of what literature can do and be.”(The website of The Electronic Literature Organization: 2007)

As the work went deep, more problems came out. People who are surrounded by modern building might be wondering about the historic sites that are mentioned in books. Are there any ways to performance the historic scene and modern environment at the same time? I used to be a photographer before. When I was thinking the detail of the project, an idea generated from the relevant area jumped into my mind. The history is like a map with several versions. If I broke their boundaries of period to combine them into one scene, there might be a dramatic contrast. The contrast must present readers a different experience of literature. I tried to combine the old photo with the modern scene to present the literature.

The work as below:

This photo is merged with a 19th century image. The interesting thing is both sides have same elements. The woman in black on the left side contrasts with the woman who played mobile on the right side. Woman in different period present their clothing in one scene. The two different cars are very dramatically. One is a carriage might be a modern symbol in that period, other one is a car. It’s quite interested contrast. The image can performance the environment in 19th century to our present users and contrasts the change of period.

N. Katherine Hayles (2007) also mentioned that in the article:” Not surprisingly, then, some genres have come to be known by the software used to create and perform them.” According to her article, it’s not only the website which can be one of the electronic literature, but also the images which combined with old and current part are also a kind of electronic literatures.

I took several photos and made other photos like below:

Cyborg blurs the boundaries between human and machine. Electronic literature makes us rethinking what literature is. They all significantly changed our thinking. So, What is the next? Moreover, I also find a very interested question. If the creature that is half human and half machine is the Cyborg, what should we call the photo that is half modern and half historical?

One of the priority tasks of the Literary High Street project is to allow users access the website primarily with mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Except of developing a unique mobile experience for users, it drives me to start exploring the influences of mobile technology to human’s lives as it is being so widely used in modern society. As we all know, the world is being connected much closer because of the development of information technology. The evolution of the information technology shows how human’s lives are being changes. Speaking of the advanced information technology today, mobile technology cannot be ignored. According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)’s “The World in 2010″ report, 90% of the world population has access to mobile networks (Shein, 2010). What’s more, it is estimated that mobile devices are going to replace PCs when people are surfing the webs by the year 2013. Also, mobile technology will also occupy people’s daily lives in many aspects in the future. For example, it will replace credit or debit card to make a payment, it will obsolete the digital camera to take photos and it will replace video players to play videos. There is no doubt that mobile devices have already penetrated in people’s daily lives. If you do not admit it, think about what is the first thing you touched in the morning? Your toothbrush, parents? No, it’s your mobile phone. Mobile technology brings lots of positive effects to human’s lives but it takes some negative influences to us as well.

Mobile technology improved people’s lives in many different aspects. Firstly, it makes people become much closer with each other through texting, social networking apps, video or voice phone calling and any other social activities. It provides users various contact ways to satisfy different needs. People can choose the most comfortable and suitable way for themselves to contact friends and families. Secondly, mobile technology also can relax people in their spare time by providing them various entertainments. Unlike the cell phone in1995, cell phone can do no more than just make a phone call. People can use it surf the Internet, play games, read e-books, take photos and videos, and so on. In addition, the mobile technology also favors people’s work a lot. People do not have to work at offices. They don’t have to worry about the unexpected work problems occurred during their vacation since they can deal with it by the mobile devices distantly. Another application on work is the use of CRM system. By viewing customers’ information on the tablets or mobile phones, sales can access customers’ information within a limited time, such as on their way to see customers so that they can provide thoughtful services (Business link, 2012). Finally, mobile technology makes life easier as well. In the past, you could see most tourists hold a map on the street, while they use the GPS and even tour guide applications instead of it nowadays. Besides, people can get the weather information anytime they want through the mobile devices rather than only through the newspaper, radio and TV. Generally speaking, with the advanced mobile technology, people benefit a lot from it.

However, from another point of view, the development of the mobile technology also has its negative side. They say that every coin has two sides. Although mobile technology brings convenience to human’s lives, it would influences people’s lives negatively on both physical and mental level when it comes to overuse of the mobile technology. Firstly, Since mobile devices provides so many convenient features, lots of people become lazier to do things on their own efforts such as visit friends, buy things in store, and so on. As time past, they will suffer from the hearth issues because of the lack of exercises and radiation from electrical devices. Secondly, the overuse of mobile technology harms people mentally as well. As the development of the mobile technology, people neglect the real sprite level communication with others since they rely too much on mobile devices. Previously, the only way to do face to face communication is to meet in person, while people can also do face-to-face communication through making a video call today. From the surface, it seems that people are more connected with each other, however, the truth is not like that. The worst thing is that people are tired to think by themselves when problems occur because of mobile technology. With mobile devices people can search for answer for any questions on the Internet, which will leads them lose the sprite to do innovative brainstorming. Therefore, people should use the mobile technology properly rather than rely on it totally.

To sum up, mobile technology has both good sides and bad sides. The most important issue is how to use it properly. Only by using it properly, people’s lives will become conveniently and beneficially.

Literature High Street project is a text-oriented experience as well as multimedia web experience which involves different forms of media. Texts are linked with texts with maps, images as well as animation and soundscapes in order to enhance the reading experience. The interactive design in this project aims to bring usability into design process, which is an effective and efficient measure by which target users can achieve specified interactive experience.Usability is a major aspect to test whether the website can be perceived as easy as to use and provide an enjoyable experience to users. The degree of usability should not be tested by third parties (people say complimentary things) until the application is published. Typical questions that should be taken into account including how easy it is to learn, how to use the application, how efficient it is for users to achieve their goals, whether users would make errors when using it, whether users are satisfied with it, etc.

At the brainstorm stage, the group members all agreed to make a website with great usability. LHS project already has a database of compiled texts, and it is a challenge for all members to think how to use exact design approaches to provide users clear navigational clues of our website. A successful website not only needs to attract user’s attention but also attract users to enjoy the website for as long as possible. Do not try to challenge users ‘patience forever. As for this LHS website, clues include text clues, image clues, etc. Good understand how to deal with fonts, colours, images, and texts make sure visitors can get the information they want immediately and organically. The multimedia web design makes a difference according to the degree of the complexity of elements used.

I think the way to organize users with navigational clues hierarchically is the contrast. The proper use of contrast can greatly improve a website. In LHS project, the basic contrast is referred to colour contrast, font size contrast and alignment contrast. The final website looks different with the one produced in the middle stage. One is that the contrast of colours is improved to enhance impacts. Contrast is not only those basics, furthermore contrast could also organize and transmit information to make this website page more interesting. In this project, Contrast is everywhere. It helps designers to cope with large amounts of texts and interests users. Dark font colour and light background colour, big size font and small font size, a serif font with a Calibri font, old map overlays, and Google map, audio and still texts are all contrasts.

In LHS project, audio can help increase the dimension of the website. It is no doubt that audio can draw user’s attention and make a good first impression. A good use of audio can transmit information to the users and help in narration. In addition, those audio can highlight the important information and direct the users to a navigational clue. The Audio used in this project is a live recording made in High Street including birds singing, people laughing, and car nosing. It will give an additional dimension to the texts and make a deeper impression to the users. Actually, the animation in this project has equally important position to the audio. Our goals set at the beginning are to highlight the organized information and make it become emphatic and impressive to users.

In addition to the contrasts discussed above, there is another important contrast: image contrast. LHS uses a number of transitional images in panorama area. The pictures are the combination of old and modern pictures. With carefully use, the designed images enhance visual attraction and emphasize our project features at the same time. The impact brought by the contrast between old and new images could be much more than just single image. But this does not mean that the images could be used without limitation, on the contrary, the images contrast should depend on the target of website and organization of information. It is important to keep the consistency of images, colours, and texts within the website. Sometimes simple images just in the right place could also make users feel comfortable. The transitional images seem to tell a story of the High street, it is more convincing than the original pictures.

The word ‘psychogeography’ has a sense of the scholarly. It suggests study, a seriousness of microscopes and set rules. Guy-Ernest Debord, a pioneer of the concept, describes the word in almost clinical terms, as “the study of the precise laws and specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organized or not, on the emotions and behavior of individuals.” Despite the stuffy definition, psychogeography is a playful concept. It is very much a display of randomness, designed to throw one off course, to become aware of one’s space. It acts as an “insubordination of habitual influences” (Debord 1955). This insubordination challenges our perceptions of space.

Psychogeography is narrative. It is a story, an element. It is how a place lives and breathes, through the eyes of one individual. In my outside reading this semester, a book called London Calling: A Countercultural History of London since 1945 by Barry Miles (2010), I was surprised to find this quote from Alexander Trocchi about Debord:

I remember long, wonderful psychogeographical walks in London with Guy [Debord]…He took me to places in London I didn’t know, that he didn’t know, that he sensed that I’d never have been to if I hadn’t been with him. He was a man who could discover a city…There was a magical quality to Guy. Distances didn’t seem to matter to the man. Walking in London, in the daytime, at night, he’d bring me to a spot he’d found, and the place would begin to live. Some old, forgotten part of London. Then he’d reach back for a story, for a piece of history, as if he’d been born there. (136)

Psychogeography is as much about experiencing earlier narratives as creating one’s own. There are stories within the walls, the hills, the trees. It is as much finding the stories of the past within the present, as we do with our Literary High Street project, as generating new narratives. These narratives may never exist beyond one’s own mind, they may not be told to friends, family, and so forth. We often do choose to share these narratives, whether we realize it or not. Recently, my parents came to visit. As we walked through Edinburgh, I found myself truly sharing my version of the city with them. Our leisurely walks brought us through the areas I know well—the University, my neighborhood, the shops and museums I frequent. As we walked, I told stories, of my adventures and misadventures, of things that occurred in the city’s past. This provided my parents with a view into my Edinburgh. The places I mention in our conversations are no longer names; they are actual locations, storefronts and streets. My friends are no longer characters; they exist in the flesh.

Sometimes, the psychogeographical aspects of the area cannot be shared through words. They are visceral and personal, the rituals that we make up for ourselves. Often our interpretations of an area are clouded by emotions, either that the landscape brings in us, or that which we are feeling in the moment, brought on by internal thoughts. Certain streets are tainted with annoyance, as I recall needlessly walking down them with an injured back. Others are happier places, memories of entertaining dinners with friends; others become places of solace, where I go to escape the busy world around me.

There is very much an aspect of getting lost to psychogeography. There are psychogeographical events that specifically want their participants to get lost, or at least end up in an area of the city/town where they have never been. This is termed “generative psychogeography” or algorithmic walking, where participants follow a set formula of taking turns at intersections (Hart, 2004). It is a similar concept to the ‘right hand road trip’ that bored American teenagers embark on. With the road trip game, every time the car comes to an intersection, the driver takes a right hand turn (if it is legal, if not, continue straight). The idea is to explore the area one lives in, in a different way. There is an excitement to this sort of thing, causing one to be more aware of the area they inhabit. Of course, one does run the risk of ending up exactly where one started approximately 20 minutes later (as I did on my first ‘right hand road trip’), but the sense of exploration and adventure caused me to notice how my hometown is put together.

I am very interested in exploring the emotional effects that a place has on a person (or that a person has on a place). The three cities I have lived in during my time as a University student—Boston, Florence, and Edinburgh—bring similar emotional responses in me. There is a similar undercurrent to these three cities, a similar feeling of memory and purpose. There is a grand exterior, with an undercurrent of the artsy and undiscovered. I feel at home in these cities. Larger cities, such as New York and London, have a different heartbeat. There is a manic energy, a clash of cultures, a sense of the busy. Yet under these cities, in each city, in every town, every street corner and forgotten tree, there is a feeling. Place and space evoke these emotions in us, peace, loneliness, excitement. It does not need to be much; the space does not need to be vast. Entering the library, one’s room, the cinema—each makes us experience the world differently. To take these experiences, these emotions, and distort them, turn them on their heads and challenge them, would be a truly psychogeographical experience.

While brainstorming ideas for the website functionality, our group unanimously agreed that implementing an audible narration feature would enhance the user experience. It was at a meeting with Matthew Aylett, technical director of CereProc text-to-speech technology, that I began to question our assumptions. How do other forms of narration such as film or theatre affect the audience? What about silent reading with your inner voice? I was very interested to learn more about the interpretive practices that accompany literature. Perhaps it was the appeal of a new text-to-speech technology that had us jump for the voice narration, but others forms of narrative were yet to be explored.

We began discussing how CereProc could influence the user’s imaginative experience on the Royal Mile —how one experiences literature. Philosopher Michael Polanyi, author of “Knowing and Being,” provides a strong argument for the theory of writing. His theory focuses on the the reader’s engagement with the text and how one derives meaning from it. That is, the author writes based on experiences and the reader finds meaning from interpretation. It is important to mention that the interpretation may be different from what the author intended to convey. This process emphasizes the importance of interpretation and how individuals might experience literature in different ways.

So does oral narration conflict with our inner voice that silently accompanies words on the pages? From Polanyi’s suggestions, interpreting literature is inherently subjective. Based on this, we can assume that Literary High Street users will have unique experiences on the Royal Mile.

Personally, I have always preferred silent reading as opposed to group or oral narration like books on tape. I find it difficult to concentrate, constantly drifting off to thoughts like, “I wonder what I should eat for lunch.” When silently reading, I am fully engaged with the literature and not distracted by other thoughts (with the exception of the dreaded textbook). There is much to explore about how different forms of narratives are experienced and what is preferred by the user. One form over another should not be deemed as ‘better’ or more imaginative, but viewed as an independent method to engage with literature. For example, this could be compared to practices of learning. Visual vs. auditory learning styles demonstrate how students retain information in different ways.

Specific to Literary High Street, different forms of narration may take the audience to unique imaginative spaces. The LHS group has created transitional photographs to aid the user’s imagination. We have called the photos ‘transitional’ as they blend historic and modern images and maps. They are a great representation of project objectives —a unique experience where the reader is immersed in Edinburgh’s strong literary presence.

The article titled, “Neo-narration: stories of art” by Mike Brennan, explores ways in which narrative techniques are employed in modern culture. Brennan coins the term ‘neo-narration’ to explain the new, “adopting of an unprecedented range of narrative techniques, especially those gleaned from literature, theatre, film or TV” (2012). Brennan provides a range of examples and examines modern narratives of classic literature of authors like Charles Dickens. He discusses how a modern film adaptation of Dickens’ semi-autobiographical hero David Copperfield, becomes a new interpretation of the classic tale.

Interpretation is central to Brennan’s analysis of modern narration. He claims, “while the process of interpretation may seem an uncertain endeavor, ambiguities and nuances are clearly more dependent on our response to what we read or hear than what we see” (2012). You could argue that this assumption demonstrates the power of oral narration for a Literary High Street app user. Emphasis on certain words, reiteration, emotion, and accent are all factors that may influence interpretation of the literature.

Transitional photo by Bing Liu

Brennan’s article has helped me reflect on the LHS design approach. Because the user’s experience will not be fixed but rather dependent on interpretation, we will provide a range of function to choose from. Feelings we want the user to experience will be different depending on their interpretation of the literature and how they derive meaning from the text. Application options will include reading the text silently, text with oral narration, or a hands-free option accompanied by oral narration. With a multi-platform format, our audience can experience the literature from any location. Perhaps one’s imagination is restricted by voice narration and may better imagine the Royal Mile silently reading on their desktop computer at home. User feedback will be very important in enhancing the prototype to create the larger Edinburgh Literary Project. With the prevalent theme of psychogeography seen throughout the project, we hope Literary High Street can provide both a historic and modern view of a city with deep literary roots.

So how do you like to read? What do you think about interpretation and different forms of narration?

This past Friday, we had our group presentation at 2pm in Alison House. We opted for a show-and-tell type presentation where we gave an overview of our project goals, design ideas, and an exploration of the website.

The group was very nervous because of the website not being completed but still a ‘work in progress.’ With some technical issues with Javascript and database issues, the website was working in pieces. We were very disappointed that we couldn’t present a finished product for the presentation, after weeks of hard work. But, we are very confident that the website will be fully functional by the final submission. Nonetheless, we are all very happy with the progress we have made and what we have learned as a team. We have explored the use of HTML5, The Google API, Javascript, JSON, Cereproc API, while also exploring historical & modern literature and notions of psychogeography.

We received some great feedback during and after the presentation that gives us great direction for the final submission.